The Emperor Machine
Biography The Emperor Machine
Andy Meecham aka The Emperor Machine
Unlike many of his peers during Britain’s rave revolution, Andrew Meecham wasn’t particularly interested in partying. His passion was, and remains, electronic music production.
Meecham started playing around with synthesizers and samplers in his bedroom as a teenager. When he and friend Chris Peat managed to talk themselves into a job at Blue Chip Studios in Stafford in the mid 1980s, it brought them into contact with local DJs and aspiring producers Dean Meredith and Mark Archer. Between them, the quartet was responsible for producing a number of early acid house and UK techno releases, before Meecham and Meredith joined forces as Bizarre Inc, and Archer and Peat formed Altern-8. Both outfits went on to produce some of the most successful and memorable dancefloor anthems of the rave era.
After a bad experience with a major label, Bizarre Inc called it a day in 1996. Meecham began recording solo under the Sir Drew alias, before joining forces with Meredith once more as Chicken Lips. Under the alias, the duo earned a reputation for producing stripped-back, dubbed-out disco influenced by the musical melting pot that was New York in the early 1980s. They scored a number of dancefloor hits, including runaway success story “He Not In.”
Since 2003, the main focus of Meecham’s solo work has been The Emperor Machine, a project born out of his love for vintage sequencers, early modular electronica and obscure library music. To date, there have been four Emperor Machine albums, as well as countless singles on D.C. Recordings, Internasjonal and Southern Fried Records.
DJ History: In 2013, Meecham sat down with DJ History’s Bill Brewster to talk through his career to date, focusing in particular on the rise and fall of Bizarre Inc, Chicken Lips’ unexpected success and his life-long love of synthesizers.
